The Pakistani government has promised to "weed out" elements in its intelligence service sympathetic to the Taliban, after a US claim of collaboration that includes the service's involvement in the bomb attack on India's embassy in Kabul last month which left 58 dead.
Publicly, Pakistan officials deny such a link to the suicide bombing, but privately confirm that they too think the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, was involved.
The Bush administration, after seven years of praising Pakistan as one of its closest allies, is putting the squeeze on its government to confront the Taliban and al-Qaida forces based in its border areas. Failing that, the US wants permission for its forces to cross the border from Afghanistan to engage them.
The embassy attack and the claim of ISI involvement, which India has also made, has strained relations between Islamabad and Delhi and threatens to undermine a four-year-old peace initiative between the two former enemies. The suicide bombing came against a background of concern inside Pakistan that India is trying to build up its presence in Afghanistan, which Islamabad regards as its area of influence.
The CIA's deputy director, Stephen Kappes, visited Pakistan last month to put before the government what he claimed was evidence of links between the ISI and the Taliban and al-Qaida. His trip follows one in January by other senior CIA staff demanding that Pakistan does more to clamp down on the Taliban and al-Qaida and to help track down Osama bin Laden.
The New York Times yesterday reported US intelligence agencies had intercepted communications between ISI officers and militants who attacked the embassy. A Pakistan government spokeswoman, Sherry Rehman, said there was no proof of ISI involvement. But she said "individuals" in the ISI are "probably acting on their own and going against official policy", adding that the authorities "need to identify these people and weed them out".
George Bush raised the issue at the White House earlier this week when he met the prime minister, Yousef Raza Gilani. The Bush adminstration would like to see Bin Laden captured before the president leaves office in January, and is using a mixture of incentives (it agreed to give Pakistan millions in aid last month to renovate fighter aircraft) and pressure. Alleged ISI involvement in the Kabul attack threatens to dominate a regional summit in Sri Lanka tomorrow in which both India and Pakistan are scheduled to participate. Tension between the two led this week to gun battles between their armed forces at the de facto border in the disputed region of Kashmir.
India's foreign secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon, told reporters in Sri Lanka yesterday that the embassy attack, as well as bombings of Indian cities, had adversely affected its peace initiative.
There are fears in Pakistan the US will intervene militarily in the country, with allegations such as that against the ISI to justify the action.
But an attempt by the prime minister to bring the ISI under civilian control, apparently in response to US pressure, backfired spectacularly when the army refused last week to accept the reform. The order had to be reversed within hours.
Pakistan is a crucial partner for the US and other allies in Afghanistan. Its forces have captured more al-Qaida operatives than forces in any other country.
Analysts say that Pakistan is torn over Afghanistan, viewing the government of Hamid Karzai as hostile and too close to India. "If your perception, as the Pakistan army, is that RAW [the Indian intelligence agency] and the CIA are acting in unison, then you try to protect yourself," said Ayesha Siddiqa, author of Military Inc. "You do not give them [the Taliban] sufficient room to completely take over Afghanistan, but you do enough to stop growing Indian influence."
Seth Jones, an analyst at Rand Corporation, said the evidence of Pakistani aid to insurgents in Afghanistan was mostly "non-lethal assistance". "The biggest issue is not what Pakistan is doing in Afghanistan, it is its unwillingness to target any militant organisation on Pakistani soil," he said.
US, British and other forces in Afghanistan, as well as the Afghan government, have repeatedly protested that Taliban and al-Qaida fighters find sanctuary on the Pakistani side of the border, in lawless tribal area. Without cutting off such refuge, supplies and training in the Pakistani territory, victory against the Taliban in Afghanistan is near impossible. ( www.guardian.co.uk )